Taste Test: The Gobblerito at Mad Mex

Wednesday

Nov 11, 2009 at 12:01 AMNov 27, 2009 at 6:29 PM

It's November (have you noticed?) and that can only mean one thing - the dreaded Thanksgiving family reunion dinner is fast approaching. For many, that mandatory familial gathering is hanging dangerously over downturned heads like the axe hovering above all those millions of artificially fattened turkeys.

It's November (have you noticed?) and that can only mean one thing - the dreaded Thanksgiving family reunion dinner is fast approaching. For many, that mandatory familial gathering is hanging dangerously over downturned heads like the axe hovering above all those millions of artificially fattened turkeys.

Ah yes, the terrible burden of the late November spread and all its attendant discomforts. You know, like after Uncle Bobo has about eight too many and then begins expounding on your mother's unfortunate premarital dating habits.

But along with all the unsavory reminiscing and unsought life-choice analyses and unheedable advice, there's also problems with the giant dinner itself. Such as your eager-to-let-you-know-she's-underappreciated mother histrionically slaving away over her never-to-be-clean-again kitchen only to produce a lot of not-quite-right tasting food.

And then there's all that tiresome passing around of dozens of dishes accompanied by the mounting anguish of the too-quickly diminishing viscous pool in the gravy boat. And I haven't even gotten into all that pesky and horribly messy business with the plates and the meddlesome knives and forks!

OK, hopefully what I've just described sounds foreign to you, or at least like a drastic exaggeration. But it's precisely the kind of scenario I imagine must've given rise to an alternate turkey dinner special being served in a tongue-in-cheek Mexican place.

What I ate: The Gobblerito at Mad Mex ($9) - available only in November

Hand to mouth: With the head-shakingly silly Gobblerito, Mad Mex has effectively done away with the need for you to join your aspersion-casting family to get your full turkey dinner on. So now you can enjoy your special poultry repast in the privacy of your own lonesome - or with just a couple of quiet margaritas for good company.

And since the Gobblerito is a tortilla wrapper encompassing the bird, mashed taters, corn and stuffing, Mad Mex has also eliminated all that momentum-slowing cutlery from the eating equation, too. Now, if you want, you can pick up your entire Thanksgiving dinner in one go and start shoving that baby right in.

Gobble, gobble!: When presented with the gargantuan Gobblerito, I noticed it was a big, heavy, floppy flour tortilla ladled with gravy (thick, kinda gloppy and with lots of black pepper) on the outside, meaning handling it like a regulation burrito entailed making a sloppy mess of yourself (but would that really matter to someone eating Thanksgiving dinner in Mad Mex?).

The no-phoney-baloney genuine roasted turkey meat inside was actually good - and there was tons of it. The mashers were also the real McCoy, if in short supply. The stuffing was maybe a grade above that of Stove Top. The corn - and some unexpected cuminy black beans - were there, I suppose, for burrito cred. On the side: gooey cranberry sauce straight from a can.

Would I eat it again: You know, it's really not half bad, in a hilarious sort of trashy way, but why offer it only during November? Because this crazy thing would eat much better in a more turkey-deprived month, like, say, February. So make that a maybe.